Welcoming grandparents

On September 29, 2015 By Aruna TalapatraIn craftLeave a comment

My parents arrive today from India. Needless to say Nadia is super excited that upon return from school she will see them. She wanted to make them something so they would know she is thinking of them while at school.

Nadia colored a grandma and grandpa. They are pretty fancy too…purple glasses and curly hair 🙂

She then glued them onto rolls.

Here they are…

And of course the best part about grandparents are the hugs…So she glued on arms too.

Now she just has to get home for the real hugs.

Have a great week.

Cheers,
Aruna

Baking a cake

On September 28, 2015 By Aruna TalapatraIn foodLeave a comment

After the cupcakes…Nadia’s very interested in baking. So Chocolate cake next…in goes the flour, eggs, milk etc.

Nadia stirred it all.

Chef’s given the approval.

Batter ready…in the oven it goes.

Cake is ready…

Alas…the chef made mincemeat of it while turning it upside down.

No worries, frosting will do the trick. And add on sprinkles…those always help.

It tastes great…who cares how it looks 🙂

Happy baking!

Cheers,

Aruna

Graduation is coming

On September 26, 2015 By Aruna TalapatraIn eventLeave a comment

My little sister and Nadia’s aunt, Guddy (Dr. Anjana Talapatra now) defended her PHD dissertation yesterday. All week she was prepping for her defense and Nayeem and I got a peep at her 70 page presentation and 100 page dissertation. We marveled at the PDF videos of energy landscapes. Her work is in the area of thermoelastic phase transformations in transition metal alloys 🙂

So after scanning a few pages of that, I decided a great way that Nadia and I could celebrate would be pre-graduation cupcakes!

So Nadia got started on some yummy chocolate cupcakes. She lined the muffin tray while I got all the ingredients ready.

Nadia mixed the flour, cocoa powder, sugar and beat 2 eggs into the mixture.

She then added 1tsp vanilla extract, 1 cup milk and 1tsp baking soda. Nadia added a few chocolate bits too. Then we poured it out into the muffin tray and waited for 20 minutes while we got the cake toppers ready.

We used Reese’s cups, Godiva squares, M&Ms and some sour strips to prepare the toppers. We used melted chocolate to glue them all together.

Note: A lot of discarded pieces were consumed here.

Finally, here are our assembled cup cakes…with and without frosting…look great and taste great too.

Great going little sister, so proud of you! Looking forward to the graduation ceremony in December with family.

Have a great week.

Cheers,

Aruna

EID mubarak

On September 24, 2015 By Aruna TalapatraIn craft, festivalLeave a comment

We used a cereal box for this one. I turned the box inside out, drew a mosque on it.

Nadia helped cut it out. She then colored…

Just love her decorations here 🙂

Happy Bakr EID !

Cheers,
Aruna

Fall mural

On September 22, 2015September 21, 2015 By Aruna TalapatraIn craftLeave a comment

This was a fun activity. Sep 23rd marks the official beginning of Fall. We had a great time collecting leaves and goofing around for pictures. What a great way to talk about Fall and the changing of seasons!

Once all the leaves were collected and cleaned we laid them out.

I laid out a freeze sheet for Nadia and she stuck the leaves on.

They are so pretty!

Once that was done, we laid on another sheet on top of it. Nadia then traced out the leaves with crayons.

They make for pretty patterns too…

Here is out fall mural – Welcome Fall!

Have a great rest of the week.

Cheers,

Aruna

Lord Ganesha – Remover of Obstacles

On September 21, 2015September 21, 2015 By Aruna TalapatraIn festivalLeave a comment

Smell of Pujo is in the air…Ganesh Chaturthi, and Durga pujo knocking at the door. Nadia and I painted Ganesha, the Elephant god this weekend. I drew an outline and Nadia painted. She picked her own colors and got started.

She was very inquisitive about Ganesha and I told her the story of his creation (a milder version where I skipped the beheading of the head etc).

After it dried I drew on the eyes.

Here is my painting, Nadia insisted I do one and it was very relaxing!

Ganpati Bappa Morya…

Have a great week.

Cheers,

Aruna

RV there yet?

On September 18, 2015 By Aruna TalapatraIn craftLeave a comment

Two years back we went on an EPIC RV trip. Looking through those pictures again Nadia and I decided to make a RV out of a box.

Nadia painted a box white. She cut out four wheels out of rolls and painted them blue.

Then Nadia drew the border of the RV and colored the windows and door.

She even drew on some flags and flowers.

She then moved on to playing in her room and I just observed and took pictures. It all started with a great day at the campsite.

A bear intrusion, with the dog chasing the bear away.

And then the roar of two dinosaurs…

Looks like the set of Jurassic Park doesn’t it?

Here’s to hours of fun and pretend play!!

Have a great week.

Cheers,

Aruna

Photography scavenger hunt

On September 17, 2015 By Aruna TalapatraIn photographyLeave a comment

I recently got Nadia a Fujifilm XP camera. It’s a really light-weight, easy to use buttons point and shoot. It has some advance features too however we won’t be using those for a while.

So she is pretty excited with it and uses it to take pictures quite a bit.

To make the seeing process a bit more simpler I decided to introduce a dinosaur scavenger hunt. I hid five dinosaurs in the backyard and let her have at them. The deal was that I needed one picture of each dinosaur, each from a different angle. And I did not hover at all…really just observed and let her go.

So here are the pictures she took. I was interested mainly in the angle, the story-telling part, the removal of distracting elements and of course they need to be all in focus. That last part is quite a challenge for the tiny fingers which focus and then shake while pressing the trigger.

She did a great job I must admit.

I took this picture of her…honestly I was emotionally overwhelmed when I saw her lie down on the grass and try to get this picture from the ground level…the joys of photography 🙂

Have a great week.

Cheers,

Aruna

Note: All pictures in this post were taken by Nadia, except the last one of course.

Constellation light box

On September 15, 2015September 15, 2015 By Aruna TalapatraIn craftLeave a comment

Lately we have been working on the transition to Nadia’s room in her own bed. It’s a work-in-progress, resulting in several sleepless nights in turn for each of us. Relentless, we struggle on. It’s been one strategy after the other, suggested by friends, family etc. I happened upon a constellation lamp online and decided we should make that. And maybe just maybe it would help Nadia fall asleep and not wake up anxious that she is alone.

We used a cereal box, turned inside out. Nadia painted it blue.